A section of Hangzhou S Road in Taipei is to be closed for five-and-a-half hours for three days, while all pedestrian and vehicular traffic in the city would be halted for 30 minutes on June 4, as part of an annual air raid drill, the city government said yesterday.
The drill, named Wan An No. 41, is to be held from 1:30pm to 2pm on June 4 in Taipei and several other cities and counties in northern Taiwan.
During the 30-minute period, all road traffic is expected come to a standstill and pedestrians would be required to get off the streets, the taipei City Government said.
The Taipei Mass Rapid Transit and the Maokong Gondola systems would run as normal, but passengers would not be allowed to exit their stations during the drill, Taipei Rapid Transit Corp said.
To test the city’s emergency responses, the section of Hangzhou S Road between Renai and Xinyi roads would be closed from 9:30am to 3pm on May 31, June 1 and June 4, the Taipei Department of Transportation said.
On those days, no vehicles would be allowed onto the specified section of Hangzhou S Road during the five-and-a-half-hour period and parking lots in the area would also be cleared, the department said.
Any contravention of the rules pertaining to the annual Wan An No. 41 exercises would result in a fine of between NT$30,000 and NT$150,000, city officials said, citing Article 25 of the Civilian Defense Act (民防法).
An increase in Taiwanese boats using China-made automatic identification systems (AIS) could confuse coast guards patrolling waters off Taiwan’s southwest coast and become a loophole in the national security system, sources familiar with the matter said yesterday. Taiwan ADIZ, a Facebook page created by enthusiasts who monitor Chinese military activities in airspace and waters off Taiwan’s southwest coast, on Saturday identified what seemed to be a Chinese cargo container ship near Penghu County. The Coast Guard Administration went to the location after receiving the tip and found that it was a Taiwanese yacht, which had a Chinese AIS installed. Similar instances had also
GOOD DIPLOMACY: The KMT has maintained close contact with representative offices in Taiwan and had extended an invitation to Russia as well, the KMT said The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) would “appropriately handle” the fallout from an invitation it had extended to Russia’s representative to Taipei to attend its international banquet last month, KMT Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) said yesterday. US and EU representatives in Taiwan boycotted the event, and only later agreed to attend after the KMT rescinded its invitation to the Russian representative. The KMT has maintained long-term close contact with all representative offices and embassies in Taiwan, and had extended the invitation as a practice of good diplomacy, Chu said. “Some EU countries have expressed their opinions of Russia, and the KMT respects that,” he
VIGILANCE: The military is paying close attention to actions that might damage peace and stability in the region, the deputy minister of national defense said The People’s Republic of China (PRC) might consider initiating a hack on Taiwanese networks on May 20, the day of the inauguration ceremony of president-elect William Lai (賴清德), sources familiar with cross-strait issues said. While US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken’s statement of the US expectation “that all sides will conduct themselves with restraint and prudence in the period ahead” would prevent military actions by China, Beijing could still try to sabotage Taiwan’s inauguration ceremony, the source said. China might gain access to the video screens outside of the Presidential Office Building and display embarrassing messages from Beijing, such as congratulating Lai
Four China Coast Guard ships briefly sailed through prohibited waters near Kinmen County, Taipei said, urging Beijing to stop actions that endanger navigation safety. The Chinese ships entered waters south of Kinmen, 5km from the Chinese city of Xiamen, at about 3:30pm on Monday, the Coast Guard Administration said in a statement later the same day. The ships “sailed out of our prohibited and restricted waters” about an hour later, the agency said, urging Beijing to immediately stop “behavior that endangers navigation safety.” Ministry of National Defense spokesman Sun Li-fang (孫立方) yesterday told reporters that Taiwan would boost support to the Coast Guard